I don't want to discuss the merits of this decision (I'm hardly qualified to
make a judgement on that even if I did know all the facts), but rather I wish to
point out that such decisions must be made in any healthcare system. In a user
pays system the decision ultimately rests with the user themselves, while in a
government run system the government must appoint a body or an individual to
make these decisions. (In an insurance driven system such as in the US the
conditions on when to make such decisions are established as part of the
insurance contract)

Such decisions must be made because "the best healthcare money can buy" would
cost the entire economic output of a nation to pay for. No matter how much you
do there is always something more that could be done to improve the odds of
survival or the comfort of the patient some small amount. As a result there must
by rationing, which is where this and similar treat-or-not decisions come in.
Someone has to make the decision, and such decisions must take into account
budget limitations, or they will simply over-spend now and lack resources for
future situations.

In any publish healthcare system people will die as the result of a
government employee's decision to limit their treatment (either by cutting it
off entirely, or restricting it to only certain procedures). Anyone who claims
otherwise is either ignorant or lying to you (and perhaps to themself). (Note
that in an insurance based system like in the US such decisions are still made,
the difference being that the conditions for the decision are set as part of a
contract rather than either via law or simple ad-hoc)

The fact that so many supporters of public healthcare regularly claim that
such things do not happen tells me that they are either liars, or that they
don't even realise that such decisions are a necessary evil, which means that
they are not even close to qualified to design or run any sort of healthcare
system.

Of course none of this gives a pass to the people who deliberately use a very
emotionally loaded phrase ("death panels") rather than a simpler, less
emotionally charged term, but when it comes to people who use emotionally
manipulative phrases versus people who are blatantly lying to you; the ones
that are actually telling the the truth come off as a little more
trustworthy.

*. "Death panels" is a rather emotionally manipulative name for such things
(Adult Guardian is just as bad in the opposite directions though), a better term
would be something like "Treatment Decision Panel".